Kris & Sundang twist core Ganja or Gonjo

[Gavin Nugent]

We have all seen very many beautiful old twist core Kris and Sundang blades in these pages but little attention beyond the main body of the blade.

I note many have a plain ganja or gonjo.

Attached is the underside of a twistie Gonjo on a Malay Sundang.

I'd be very interested to view other types of the twistie nature.

[CharlesS]

Certainly interesting Gavin, but is it possible to get better pics, and see it in relationship to the entire blade?

[David]

Technically, if this is indeed a Malay sundang, discussion of it probably belongs on the Keris Forum. You may get a different attention over there. I will discuss this with my co-mod, Rick.

[Gavin Nugent]

Originally Posted by David

Technically, if this is indeed a Malay sundang, discussion of it probably belongs on the Keris Forum. You may get a different attention over there. I will discuss this with my co-mod, Rick.

Hi David,

I thought about posting there but offered the question up here as Kris far outweigh Sundang in these pages, especially twist core examples. If the trait is found to be only Sundang specific, then it might be worth dropping it in a little later...for now I am hoping any twist core owners are viewing their collections with more interest...see what comes out if anything as I am very sure it is not very common.

[Emanuel]

Hello,

Keris gonjo is made by cutting a piece of material from the blade forging, as shown in the video posted here, so the gonjo should be of the same pattern-welded material as the blade.

If this forging method is also common to Malay pieces, then I would expect the twistcore gonjo to be fairly common to most twistcore sundang

I will be sure to may more attention to the gonjo from now on.

Emanuel

[Gavin Nugent]

Thanks Emanuel.

I do find this area of Kris, Sundang and Keris very interesting.

I am not smith but there are some very tricky methods used to obtain some very beautiful and amazing Gonjo that are often overlooked...some no matter how hard I look, I cannot fathom how they were made, equally so for the blades.

With regards to the initial image presented, visually, to me, this appears to be a good insight in to twistcore manufacture well before final forging, a thick non flattened twistcore cross section. Ric may be able to chime in here too.

Lets see what comes out of the Twistie collectors collections.

[Gavin Nugent]

Originally Posted by CharlesS

Certainly interesting Gavin, but is it possible to get better pics, and see it in relationship to the entire blade?

Charles, I'll work on better Gonjo pics when I next have it out, a twistie profile shot wouldn't go astray.
I'll keep the images specific to this area though as it is only this aspect of the Sundangs and Kris that I wish to discuss....but only if they are twistcore.